8 Chapa 1
The scorching sun burning in the blue skies above. On the outskirts of a small farming village, there stands a man with a hoe in hand striking the hard dry soil. Each strike takes a chunk of dirt away. The dirt is of a yellowish-brown color.
It was so loose and brittle that every time the dry hot wind blew, it would refill the canal he was trying to carve. The town has been in a drought and not a single dropped has fallen in months.
Sweat poured down his forehead as he stroke the ground to no end in sight. A drop ran down his back, gliding in through his buttcrack and passing between the cheeks. He stopped to drink some water.
Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he looked at the endless blue skies while reflecting on his past life. Back then life was interesting and he would experience frequent anomalies during his days as a doctor.
He could still remember the sweet face of that cute little ghost girl he used to converse with while working at the medical school clinic. A pain was reflected deep in his heart. Like a tsunami, memories of the hospital's closing came flooding in.
The sound of footsteps and heavy breathing could be heard at a distance. A dashing figure is rushing to a building surrounded by heavy machinery. There is yellow tape covering the perimeter of the building. Stoping any attempts at trespassing.
It looks like a construction site. But there is something weird about it. This building looks finished and in perfect condition. Like something that has stood there for many years.
"STOP!!!" the running figure bellows from deep within his lungs. To no avail, he is too far away and the people close to the building don't seem to hear his loud cries.
The figure speeds up. He races with all his might to the site in front. When he finally arrives next to the yellow tape he hears a voice saying "Hey what are you doing here? You can't be here is not safe. STOP!!!".
He doesn't listen and keeps rushing the building full throttle.
"I have to save her... She's all alone... she needs me. I cannot abandon her now..." these thoughts run through his mind while he inches closer and closer to the building.
"BOOM... BOOM... BOOM..." explosions go off and a deafening sound strikes the running figure. Everything goes dark...
A man opens his eyes, his head still buzzing. It seems that he passed out due to the extreme heat covering the land during the daytime. A freezing chill seeped into his bones making him shiver. Looks like it's nighttime already.
The dry cold nighttime winds would make him shiver every time they made contact with the exposed parts of his skin. He is cover with dirt. In front of him an empty barren plot of land. A hoe lay next to him. He is the man that was previously plowing the field.
"Seems like I have passed out from the heat. I should have gone to the river to get some water. That way I would have added some much needed moister to the soil before I commenced plowing it. Would have conserved some energy. Seems the reason I passed out is this dam heat. I should also stay more hydrated next time so this doesn't repeat itself." the men thought while patting the dirt off his overalls.
He picked up his hoe and started walking home. He lived in an old wooden house. Not that big, consisting of only the bare minimum. A stove, bed, and fireplace for those winter nights. But it is still the middle of summer so there is no need for it at the moment.
Before going to bed he decided to wash up first. He had no bathroom instead he went to the back of the cabin where there was an enormous wooden barrel next to a wooden outhouse.
The barrel was odd-looking, but it wasn't the barrel itself which was odd. There was a bunch of metal pipes coming out of it. It looked kind of macabre.
He stood next to a furnace and toss a few logs in and lit them up. Smoke started being produced and the heat traversed through pipes that connected to the wooden barrel heating the water inside.
With this, the man started to take off his dirty overalls and clothes. One look at his body and he was in no way a small thin girly boy. He was fat and big framed.
For some reason, he wasn't flabby. All that hard farm work had made his body extremely strong and resilient. You could feel a kind of hidden power when looking at his limbs and muscles.
He approached the barrel from the side. There were a couple of steps heading to the top of the barrel. After climbing the spets he jumped in and dove into the warm water.
A relaxing feeling washing over him. While relaxing in the warm soothing water, eyes shut, he started to think about what had happened earlier during the day and how he had lost consciousness while plowing the fields.
For reasons unbeknownst to him, when he fainted he was overwhelmed by memories of the past. He vividly remembered running to the school hospital he used to work at, in a desperate attempt to stop its demolition. But in the end, he was too late.
He couldn't stop them from demolishing it. He couldn't save her. The ghost of Kiri was bound to that building and he couldn't save her.
He returned to the site several times. But all efforts were for naught, he still wasn't able to find any traces of Kiri. He could only hope that she was able to ascend into the afterlife without a problem.
This incident was a weight on his heart that he wasn't able to overcome. Forcing him to quit his medical profession altogether.
It has been several years since the incident. Now he lives in this remote village and tends to his farm for a living. With this new start, he left every part of his old self behind including his name.
For the aforementioned reason, locals referred to him as The Fat Farmer. He lived a quiet and humble life. Normally keeping to himself and only going to the village to get supplies and sell some of his produces.
After an hour he got up from the bath. After wiping himself dry, he entered the cabin, eat dinner and went to bed. In bed, he closed his eyes and thought about tomorrow.
He would have to go to the river to get water this time around before doing the farm work, he doesn't need a repeat of today. Well, that's a problem for future me anyway...
